In a time of advanced technologies, talk about traditional radio It may sound like something from the last century. However, there are still those who do not have their smartphone connected to the car to listen to Spotify or a podcast, but prefer to continue tuning in to the radio. In any case, what is heard is FM radio, frequency modulated, which is where most stations are present. yesteryear too there was an AM radio that no one remembers and that the new electric cars are choosing not to include directly.
To put ourselves in context, AM radio is amplitude modulated, a modality that stands out for having much more coverage than FM radio, albeit with a smaller bandwidth. In practice, it has resulted in lower quality that has caused stations to switch to FM unilaterally. And it seems that in the current cars are not worth their inclusion either. The forerunner in this movement was the BMW i3, which had no AM radio when it arrived in the United States nearly a decade ago.
At the time, BMW said that AM radio was not offered due to “negative influences on the performance of the electromagnetic interference of electrical transmission. Once it was shown that electric motors didn’t play well with AM radio, many manufacturers began to remove it and users didn’t notice it much. But now he is back in the spotlight, because US Senator Ed Markey has stressed that removing him could pose a “significant communication problem.” during emergencies«.
The european manufacturers They are the ones who are removing the AM radio from their new cars because of that electromagnetic interference. It also influences that in our continent analog transmissions have been reduced significantly, since the cost of maintaining the infrastructure is higher than in the new dab radio (Digital Audio Broadcasting). If we look at the manufacturers, we see that Mercedes includes it in its EQ, it is also in others like the Ford F-150 Lightning or the Fiat 500e (although it may not be for long), in the rest it has been disappearing.
In any case, Senator Markey insists that radio remains one of the means of communication safer and more accessible. Talk about your potential in an emergency and also in its great reach, especially in countries as large and disintegrated as the United States. The future of AM radio is not yet clear, but we are not very optimistic about it.